"I was definitely happy about [Boston's dedication]. The free-agency period was definitely a stressful one, but I stayed patient," said Lee, who at one point earlier in the summer acknowledged he was drawing interest from as many as eight teams. "I let my agent and I let Danny [Ainge] and those guys figure it out, and once it came to [to be], I was definitely happy and relieved about it.

"Once you see that there's interest from a team, the decision's up to you, so I had a tough decision to make. I had a lot of different offers from a lot of different teams, but the one I really wanted to come to was Boston, so I spoke with my agent, I spoke with my family. It was a decision that I had to take less money to come here, but in that, I'll be winning, I have a chance to play on TV, and that's what everybody wants to do -- they want to win big and have a chance to win a ring. So it was a no-brainer for me."